


We're Not Going To Die, Karen

by ajay_lotte



Series: The Yellow Car Initiative [12]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Humor, Attempt at Humor, BAMF Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Games, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson Friendship, Matt Murdock is a little shit, kind of, yellow car game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajay_lotte/pseuds/ajay_lotte
Summary: In which Nelson, Murdock & Page get kidnapped, Clint can't babysit an unconscious vigilante, and Daredevil becomes stronger than ever.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Matt Murdock, Matt Murdock & Avengers Team, Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson & Karen Page
Series: The Yellow Car Initiative [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883668
Comments: 10
Kudos: 157





	We're Not Going To Die, Karen

**Author's Note:**

> So, this wasn't the intended next part of the series but life is like that...  
> Marvel owns all these characters and stuff, this is just a fanfiction for my own amusement because I suck, I'm bored, and think Nelson, Murdock, and Page need more limelight  
> Warnings: swearing (as always, the day this isn't in the list the world will be ending), kidnapping, there is implied torture (not graphic), nameless drugs are mentioned for a split second  
> Hope this fic is worth more than the split second it takes to read  
> Lotte :)

Karen’s panicking. She knows she needs to calm down, to think reasonably, and figure out a way to escape. But being kidnapped isn’t something she’s skilled in. Even though she did manage to escape the first time. The man watching her is called on his radio. “I’ll be back.” Is all he says before walking out of the warehouse.

The first thought Karen has is to scream, because Matt could possibly hear her, but then she remembers she doesn’t want to get herself killed. Then she thinks about getting out of the rope hold, but the more she moves she just tightens the ropes and burns her wrists. Then she starts to panic again as the door opens again. “Foggy!” She exclaims.

“Karen!” He gasps out, only to be held tighter by the guy dragging him in. “Sorry… got it… I’ll be quiet.” Foggy says. He’s tied down to a chair, against the wall, a metre to the side of Karen. Then the man leaves, without a word, leaving them alone in the dark. “Strange to be the one saying it, but… I can’t see.”

Karen snorts a laugh. It’s not funny. She just doesn’t want to cry. “Will he find us?”

“We’re not in the Kitchen.” Foggy says.

It wasn’t a ‘no’. It felt like a ‘no’. “Fuck.”

“Other than that though, I have no idea where we are, how long I was unconscious, what day it is, what time it is. I don’t even know why we’ve been kidnapped.”

“Do you think it’s Daredevil related?” Karen asks.

There’s a long pause. “I don’t know.” That felt like a ‘yes’. Karen’s getting better at lawyer speak.

“We can’t just sit here and do nothing. We need a plan.” She tells Foggy. For a second, she thinks her eyes are beginning to adjust, but that was just an optimistic thought in the spur of the moment. “Maybe, when the guy comes in, we could, uh,”

“Do some magic ninja shit?”

Karen chuckles away a sad sniff. “Yeah.” This is a lot different to the last time she was kidnapped. That time she could see, wasn’t tied up, was placed right next to a loaded gun. This time, there’s nothing. Nothing to use to her advantage.

The sound of a familiar voice catches their attention. “You’re cheating.” The door opens. Matt spits at the man.

“Matt!” Foggy exclaims, and he’s pushed into the room. He falls to the floor. The door is shut and the light’s turned on. The sudden bright light takes a second to adjust to, but when Karen’s eyes focus on her friend, she can’t prevent the gasp she lets out. He’s bruised and bleeding, wearing nothing but his underwear, and his legs are tied together, circulation being cut off by ropes, and his hands are chained together behind his back. The most upsetting thing about his appearance though, are his eyes: heavily bandaged with blood seeping through and staining the white fabric. “Matt, buddy. It’s me. Foggy. And Karen.”

“I know.” Instead of sounding defeated, he just sounds fed up. Foggy doesn’t bring up how injured he is, so neither does Karen. He rolls over and rests his head on the floor. “Gimme a minute.”

“Give you a minute?” Karen asks. “I’m raising a very sceptical eyebrow Matt.”

“Ugh!” He rolls over onto his back, then settles on his side. “The floor’s un-comfy.”

“Dude, you find cotton un-comfy.” Foggy says. Karen’s not sure this is the right time to be having this conversation, but to her surprise, Matt snorts. She raises an eyebrow at Foggy, and he gives her a semi-sad smile. She thinks Foggy would have liked to have given her some information, but with Mr Super-Hearing here, it’s probably best he doesn’t. “So, any idea why we’re here Matty?”

Matt grumbles something.

“Matty?”

More grumbling.

“Matt, you’re not making any sense.” Karen says.

“No, I got that one.” Foggy shakes his head. “Well, ish. I heard ‘Stark’ and ‘lawyers’ mentioned. Do they think we’re Stark’s lawyers? Are we a ransom, Matt?”

“Revenge.” Matt says, in a manner so calm Karen can’t believe this is real. “They’re gonna kill us on a live video to get revenge on Stark.”

“What the fuck?!” She yells.

“Shh.”

“Murdock! You did not just shush me after telling me we’re all going to die!”

“We’re not going to die, Karen.” Foggy gets some serious déjà vu vibes, and he’s kind of worried this is going to escalate into the mess that was the bomb fiasco when he was introduced to Peter. Actually, Peter being here right now would be kind of nice.

“Any chance one of your contacts will rescue us?”

Matt hums. “They’re uploading a video of me now, so Tony will get it, and he’s a tech guy. But they’re uploading it in Hell’s Kitchen. We’re in Brooklyn.”

Foggy grins at that. “Great! Captain America will…”

“Not get here on time. He’s with Peggy and Vision in China.”

Karen doesn’t have a better, more relevant question for Matt than: “Why?”

“The Red Skull. He got banished by some celestial from Vormir.”

Karen blinks. Foggy stays quiet. Then he says: “I’m just gonna pretend I know what that means and hope the world isn’t gonna end in the next hour, whether we die or not.”

“We’re not going to die, Foggy.” Matt groans and rolls over onto his stomach again and presses his face into the floor. “Just… ugh, it’s so much easier being kidnapped with Peter. He lets me mope first.” That requires so many questions Foggy isn’t prepared to ask. “And he doesn’t want to be rescued by Captain America. The only chains I will ever let Cap untie me from are…”

“Matt. Focus.” Foggy says. “And please, be realistic here. If we’re not going to get rescued, and there’s a possibility of us dying, I don’t want the last conversation we have to be about what you get up to with Captain America.”

Matt proceeds to ignore this. “That would only be in a weird situation though. Normally, I get Peggy to unchain them, or…” Matt beams, “I escape them myself.”

It takes what only feels like a second and Matt’s standing, handcuffs abandoned on the flood, ropes untied around his feet. Karen’s jaw drops. Foggy can’t stop staring. To show off, because he’s a dick, Matt flips over to Foggy and unties his ropes, and then Karen’s, and soon the two are standing up. “Shit!” Matt freezes.

“What?!” Foggy yells.

“We missed court. It was Benson’s trial today.” Well, that solves Foggy’s earlier question of when it is. He’s only missed a day. Which is nice. In comparison to what could have been a lot longer according to previous conversations he’s had with Trish Walker and IKD nights.

“Hey, Matt?” Karen asks gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure he’ll get a re-trial; these are definitely exceptional circumstances.” Matt hums, and after a long moment of him just stood their frowning, he seems to agree. “You said they were uploading a…” Foggy shoots her a look. “Uploading a video of you,” she continues, “so you’ve been here for longer than us. Any idea where we are more specifically or how we can get out?” That wasn’t what she was going to ask, but Matt would question a sudden change in topic.

“Yeah. But we’re not going to do that.”

“No?”

“No.” He then frowns. “Well, we could, but I’ve never been kidnapped with you guys yet, and I think this could be really fun. Normally, I’m kidnapped alone, or with Peter, because for some reason villains who hate Tony know he’s an intern and that I’m ‘kind of his lawyer’,” Matt makes air quotes around the title. “Then, if I’m ever captured as Daredevil, which is rarely, but not as rare as I’d like, I’m often with Deadpool and sometimes Spider Man too, or any combination of the Defenders, and I was kidnapped with Black Widow a couple of times too. But there’s this game…”

“Hold up. How many times have you been kidnapped?” Foggy asks, and Karen can’t even begin to form a sentence right now.

Matt hums. “I don’t know, around twenty. But Foggy, there’s this game, and you guys might like it. ‘Cause I know you were both scared when I came in, but now I’m eighty percent certain you’re just irritated with me and are no longer worried.”

“What’s the game?” Karen sighs, not seeing a way out of not hearing about it.

“We try to irritate the kidnappers as much as we can.” Matt says. “Loser buys ice cream.”

“Matt, that’s reckless.” Karen says.

“And stupid.” Foggy adds. Matt beams.

And that’s how Nelson, Murdock, and Page go back to pretending to be tied up, and just in time for the man to return to the room, this time accompanied by four others. Three women and another guy, and Foggy gulps. Though Matt’s lips quirking up into a suppressed smile stop him from worrying too much. Somebody drags Matt to a chair and ties him too it so he’s in the middle of Karen and Foggy.

“That’s Page, Murdock, and Nelson.” One of the women say, looking through the camera. “The order’s wrong. Change it.”

“We’re partners.” Matt says. “There is no wrong order.”

“To match the order of your names of your company.” The guy who came in last says.

“Oh.” Matt says again, then hums. “But not everybody’s as stupid as you. They won’t need us to be sat in the same order to figure out who we are.” Foggy chokes. Karen’s jaw drops.

“You little…”

“Calm it, Drew. He’s just fuckin with us. He’s a lawyer, let him talk.”

Karen takes a deep breath beside Matt, and he bites down a smirk. “Are you saying I can’t talk?” Karen asks.

“Yeah. Do we have a gag?” The man, not Drew, asks.

“If the logic is because I’m not a lawyer, you guys aren’t lawyers either. You should all be gagged.”

“She’s right.” Foggy says. “And I am a lawyer, that makes complete sense.”

“It’s not because she’s a lawyer.”

“Then is it because I’m a woman? I’m sure your friends here would be pleased to find out they’re helping a sexist with a kidnapping.”

“I’m not sexist.” He says, and there’s a murmur of doubt which makes Matt smile, just a little. Foggy would have loved to have heard that. And by the small argument it causes, Foggy’s almost just a little glad they agreed to stay and play the game with Matt. “Seriously, I’m not sexist! I’d have said it to the other guy too!”

“So the only reason you’re allowing our partner to talk is to because he’s blind?” Foggy questions, and the guy blanks for a second.

“I’d like to be treated the same as my partners please.” Matt requests seriously, then holds back a smirk. “But if you’re going to get us to read out the ransom note to Stark, I’d like mine in braille please.”

“We could sue you for not being ADA compliant.” Foggy agrees.

“We’ve literally kidnapped you!” Drew exclaims. “And can you quit with the ransom note! This isn’t a ransom, we already explained it to you. How can you be so stupid- you’re a lawyer! We’re going to kill you on a livestream!”

“How’s that livestream going?” Matt asks, and he can tell Foggy, Karen, and the kidnappers are all confused until the heartbeat of the cameraperson rockets. “Good amount of views yet? And I’m not stupid. I’m good with words and just got you to confess on camera in front of… what, millions? That you kidnapped us and are planning on killing us.”

“Oh, wait! Before you stop the livestream, Murdock graduated summa cum laude at Columbia, and Nelson cum laude, they’re the best lawyers I know, and to the court case missed today, we want to give a formal apology for missing it, but this was definitely an unforeseen circumstance.”

“Karen, we can’t issue an apology on a livestream during a kidnapping.” Matt says, then goes on to agree. “Informally, I’m so sorry.

“Does nothing faze you Murdock?” Iron Man comes into the room, dressed in his suit, War Machine following close behind. Matt mutters something under his breath which sounds to Foggy like ‘I was gonna do the rescuing’. Foggy has to work hard on not laughing. “Ok, you five. Don’t move. Rhodey; untie Nelson, Murdock, and Page please. And for the love of God, stop filming!”

Rhodes goes to untie the three but all three just stand up, letting their ropes and handcuffs respectively fall to the ground. “Oh, you escaped. Drew and gang, to think you call yourselves professionals.”

“I don’t know…” one smirks, “we gave that blind lawyer a pretty bad time, don’t you think? Or have you not checked the internet yet?”

“Friday, check the internet and take down any posts about Mr Matthew Murdock in the past twenty-four hours.” Stark instructs and takes the phone recording from the gang and stops the video. “I’ll be hanging onto this. “Are you three ok? I mean, relatively. I’m so sorry this has happened to you… again, Matt.”

“It’s fine. Ish.” Karen says. “Totally their fault, not yours.”

Tony nods. “You three are friends with Daredevil, right? You want me to call Mahoney?”

“Yes, please.” Foggy says but Matt rocks on his feet.

“Mr Stark.” Murdock says. “I, umm,” he sighs. “I need to go to the hospital.” Foggy’s jaw drops open.

“I’ll bring you back with me to the Avengers medical ward.” Matt lets out a massive sigh of relief, and suddenly Foggy is holding his hand.

“I can stay with Miss Page and Mr Nelson.” Rhodes says. “We’ll keep an eye on these.” Tony nods, and with a ‘sorry’, lifts Matt using the suit and flies him to Upstate New York in record timing.

“Much more efficient than an ambulance.” Matt comments, and Stark chuckles. “Sorry for asking this of you.”

“Technically you didn’t. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you hate hospitals from the aftermaths of other kidnappings. You take them surprisingly well.” Matt just nods. “Would you like me to guide you?”

“Please.” Tony leads Matt through to the hospital, and the doctor asks him to leave before helping Matt. “My, uh, my eyes.” Matt starts weakly, but the doctor is rushing him through to a bed and helping him sit down.

“I saw the video.” The doctor says, and Matt nods. “They’ll need immediate attention, would you like the anaesthetic?”

Matt takes a deep breath.

“Yes.”

When Matt wakes up, all he can feel is pain. He starts yelling, calling for his dad, saying he can’t see. He can’t see. He can’t see. Dad! All around his eyes, the pain is so strong, so centred, that he can almost feel his eyes trying to see. Trying to comprehend the information, but it isn’t visual. The amount of sensory information there is combatting his other senses, and his world on fire is just about non-existent, only flashes of imaginary flames flash with the nurse’s quick entrance into the room. “Mr Murdock.” She says calmly, not touching him, which is probably smart. “Mr Murdock, can you hear me? You’re in the Avengers medical centre, and Agent Barton is here. You’re not alone.” Matt takes in the information, catches each sentence with a long breath, and calms himself down. “Ok. How do you feel?” She asks him.

Matt takes a few more deep breaths. “Blind.” He says eventually, with a proportional smirk.

“No kidding.” Clint chuckles.

“I smell flowers.”

“Turns out you’re a pretty popular person, R- Murdock.”

Matt scoffs, not wanting to move from his position on his back- he’s facing straight to the ceiling as far as he can tell. “Hard to believe someone who was going to get my name wrong.”

“Hey! I- ah. You’re cruel Murdock.”

“But I’ve been here long enough to receive flowers. What time is it?”

“Ten past six.” The nurse says without hesitation. “You’ve been here for two days.” Matt has nothing to say to that, so he doesn’t, just lets the information roll over him. “Are you in any pain or discomfort right now, Mr Murdock?”

“Yes, uh, yeah. My eyes are burning, the skin all around too, like I’m on fire.” He says. “But it also feels like pins and needles.”

The nurse doesn't offer to increase his dosage of painkillers, and for the first time, Matt's not sure if he's grateful or not. “Do you have any recollection of yesterday?”

Matt frowns. “Should I have any recollection of yesterday?” He doesn’t get an answer and doesn’t need to rely on any super-senses to know that Clint and the nurse are sharing a look.

“No.” Clint says, voice several octaves higher. “I’m going to order pizza. Any preference?”

“Something spicy. What happened yesterday, Clint?”

Matt doesn’t find out until several hours later when he’s dressed and sat in the Avenger’s common room for their Friday night movie night- apparently Daredevil said ‘no’ to coming, according to Wanda, so Matt assumes Danny took his suit out for a spin, which he is entirely grateful for, but what gives the secret away is Nat and Sam entering the room. Matt cocks his head to the side- both are limping, bruised, cut, and with multiple broken bones.

“Woah, what happened to you two yesterday?” Tony asks, and Nat grumbles something before sitting down on the sofa next to Bruce with a slight grunt.

Sam sits down next to Tony. “We ran into Daredevil, wearing his old suit. The black one.” Matt cocks his head to the side, and Clint’s heart accelerates. Matt finds comfort in the fact his focus is returning to his surroundings, before remembering he wants to pay attention to the topic of conversation. “He was in pain. Seemed a little delirious.”

“The Devil? Was delirious?”

“No- he was high.” Tony’s reaction is pretty similar to Matt’s, though a lot more obvious. Sam steps up before he can say anything.

“So, we tried to help. We went to Hellhouse, met Wilson. He diagnosed the Devil- high on antibiotics.”

“It was more along the lines of: ‘oh yeah, he’s stoned’ followed by a manic laugh. He then explained whoever’s under the mask doesn’t react well to painkillers and antibiotics. Apparently, they can affect him more than some illegal drugs can a regular person.” Matt frowns. He is a regular person. Most of the time. Sometimes. Occasionally. Ok; he’s not a regular person, but that’s not the point.

“Ok, great, so the devil can get high. Doesn’t explain how you two got beaten to smithereens.”

“Wade refused to babysit, and Daredevil in that state could have been a threat, so we decided to watch him.” Sam says. “He was reluctant, but he was very excited to play the yellow car game when Nat bought it up.”

“Of course he was.” Clint laughs, and Matt keeps his face unreadable. “Was he any worse than usual?”

“Much.” Nat says, but she perks up in her seat. “But I think I figured out the joke behind it.” Bucky quirks an eyebrow, which Matt doesn’t pick up on, but the blind man does notice his heart pick up in interest. “I’m pretty sure he’s colour-blind.”

“Oooooh.” Sam lets out. “Yeah, that figures. We ended up hitting the guy back for more wrong answers than he got right. Much more.”

“But… no, wait; yeah. That’d explain it.” Tony says.

“That actually explains a lot.” Bucky says. “Like that time we went with Steve to help choose paint for the bathroom.” Tony has a hard time imagining Daredevil shopping for paint with two supers-soldiers. He wishes he’d been there. Clint snorts. “And you already knew.” The Winter Soldier narrows his eyes at Clint, who cowers under the stare. “How did you know?”

“Matt, save me. Bucky’s going to kill me.” Matt chuckles.

“Anyway, we hit him back one too many times, and something… almost possessed him. He fought through a seriously bad case of double vision and/or hallucinations.”

“He was seriously trippy.” Nat adds. “I’ve been to space, and I know that whatever he was seeing was weirder.”

“Yet somehow, you both lost.”

“We didn’t want to hurt him.” She argues.

“Liar.” Clint says, and her defeated groan makes it seriously hard for Matt to not smile. Just a little. He’s glad to know that when his world-on-fire is a wild inferno and he’s high on antibiotics, he can beat Black Widow in a fight, even if it means having no moral boundaries or recollection of the fight. Though, he knows he really shouldn’t have gone out. And he knows he has to tell Foggy, even if he didn’t consciously choose to do something.

“But there was also something different about him… like he was… stronger, maybe? Or maybe he was faster? His balance was just as good as always, though.” Nat says, then glances at a paling Murdock, definitely not to do with his thoughts of angering Foggy again. “Murdock, you ok?” Nat asks.

“Yeah.” He tilts his head to the side. “I’ve spoken to Daredevil, a few times, though please don’t tell Fury that.” That statement confused a few hearts in the room. “But did you try to detain Daredevil? If he was that dangerous?”

“Yes, though that’s probably where we went wrong. He doesn’t seem like someone who wants to be caged.”

“And that wasn’t obvious by his stunts around the city?” Tony scoffs. “Dude’s a wild animal. A totally awesome wild animal. Friday: put that into the betting pool. Five dollars.”

Matt stays the night after the film, but Clint drives him- reluctantly- to work the next morning, where Matt forces the archer to drop him off without coming into the office. If only to annoy his friends more with the Clint mystery. As expected, Foggy and Karen are sat in the office, not working. Not that Matt expected them to be. They should both be at home. Sleeping, or talking to a therapist, or doing something that Matt would never consider.

“Hey guys.” He says, opening the door.

“Matt!” Foggy jumps to his feet and Karen stands up, hovering awkwardly. Matt fiddles with the strap on his cane. “Matt we were so worried! We weren’t allowed in to see you, and, and, no one would take my calls, except Stark, who told me you were fine and actually explained a lot, but still!”

“The doctor gave me lots of painkillers and antibiotics which made me high and go out and fight crime with no memory of it.” Matt says in a surprisingly level manner before anyone has time to say anything else.

Foggy remains calm. “Ok. That’s fine, that was a subconscious decision you’re not being held accountable for.” And with the calm, no pressure situation, Matt can’t keep the words from tumbling out.

“The Avengers think Daredevil’s colour blind.”

“Ok. That is technically true and not enough to give away your identity.”

“They recreated the accident from when I was a kid using super-serum chemicals before stabbing my eyes multiple times, and now I have super strength. And speed. And this will be the last time I ever get high off painkillers. I can never get drunk. And I like being drunk!”

Foggy’s heart stutters a little but not enough to drive Matt off track.

“Ok.” Foggy doesn’t manage any more than that though; he knows his voice will crack, and he doesn’t want to frighten Matt off.

“And now all the scarring I got bullied for when I was a kid is back!” Matt unwraps the bandages from around his face leaving his raw skin for his friends to see. “And it really hurts Foggy!”

“Dude, you still look a lot better than me. And it’ll heal. With the new powers, hopefully it'll be less painful too.”

“I’m so sorry you both had to go through that. And that I lied about being able to escape and then had to persuade you to stay by playing a game, because we needed Stark to come.”

“We were stalling?!” Karen exclaims, but her heart doesn’t seem to care, nor seem that surprised.

“And for the other half, not your fault, buddy.” Matt seems to glitch at that, his face kind of does a thing.

“Yellow car.” He says. “Out the window, at my four o’clock.” Karen looks out the window and nods. He walks over and hits them both, earning a grumble of complaint from Foggy.

“How did you know where exactly?”

Matt smirks. “Clint dropped me off. He’s outside now.” Both of his partners race to the window, but if the trio were in a stand off in a Western movie, the only thing outside would have been the singular piece of tumbleweed caught in the ever-present breeze.


End file.
